


wasted times and broken dreams (violent colors so obscene)

by irolltwenties (Shenanigans)



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Echo - Freeform, F/M, Prequel, Push AU, Remix, mostly atmospheric natterings, rnmfanficremix2020, soft fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:47:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22495051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shenanigans/pseuds/irolltwenties
Summary: The prologue to the phenomenal PUSH au.Max has been in captivity so long, he's almost let himself believe he's forgotten.
Relationships: Max Evans/Liz Ortecho
Comments: 12
Kudos: 27
Collections: RNM Fanfic Remix 2020





	wasted times and broken dreams (violent colors so obscene)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Milzilla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Milzilla/gifts).
  * Inspired by [men come in different shades (that’s how we’re made)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20022658) by [Milzilla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Milzilla/pseuds/Milzilla). 



> AN: I fucking love the movie PUSH in a very simple and devoted kind of way. Millie and I have actually talked about PUSH au’s before and I was ecstatic when she started this one. I’m secretly super stoked that I got to do a remix for her so I could play around in this sandbox. A couple of things to note: the events of the movie PUSH took place in 2009, the same time as the events of episode 6 so that let me fiddle faddle around with the timeline of Roswell and create something that could be a blend of that backstory and this. So, this is the prequel to the AU Millie started because I love Echo a lot. Hope you enjoy it lovely!
> 
> This is entirely based around what my brain did with this line:
> 
> Something shifts on Soulful Eyes’ face. He exhales softly. “You know Liz?”

Max had almost forgotten what the sky looked like; he'd almost forgotten the way it went multicolored and incredible out over the long desert plains. He knew that it was supposed to be blue. He knew that the blue of veins under the special dampening lights the Division used wasn't right.

He stayed backed against the tile wall in his cell, the plexiglass cage leaking light and muffled noise. Max Evans lived in a room that was ten by ten with a pneumatic door and special alarms that ripped through his mind and shattered any thoughts he might have. He lived in a room that was ten by ten, the same sad white as his clothes, and his memories.

He'd see Isobel once a day, strapped down and pallid in a small cotlike bed bristling with monitors and a machine that breathed for her. He'd almost forgotten the color of her hair.

Michael he could hear screaming.

Max has all ten fingers and all ten toes. He's outgrown the clothes he wore when they were taken. He's outgrown the cells one at a time until they settled him here. He knows he probably had a mother. He knows he probably had a father, but he also knows that they seemed to walk out of the desert into the small town with no memory of where they'd come from or where they'd been.

The long range trucker that picked them up had smelled like Mountain Dew and tobacco. He swiveled around in the plush padded seat of his rig, barrel chested and bearded under a frayed brim cap. The man had thick knotted knuckles and yellow teeth. Max picks up all the memories from before and turns them over and over carefully, searching the edges of them for frayed forgotten bits. He searches them carefully, looking for the ones that aren't real.

He's learned the fake ones feel soft and loamy as two day old soap left in water. They smear and stain, but the color always fades and slips away if he presses.

Max Evans keeps the story of himself like a stack of carefully color coded marbles. He keeps everything segregated into chapters and moments.

There's the woman that the trucker gave them to. She was beautiful he thinks, with wild curly hair and warm concerned eyes. She'd made music when she walked, a soft jingle that seemed so foreign after the long endless hiss of recycled air and the careful timed beeps of machinery. She wore white.

The techs wear white here and don't speak to the subjects. They have a special visor to block any errant Pushed thought. They are covered from head to toe, blank faced and efficient. The Division learned. The only people who walked the halls without protection were high level agents in slim cut dark suits and haunted eyes. It all blurs together, an endless parade of white on white.

He feels snowblind.

He remembers the woman was standing outside like she was waiting for them. He remembers that she had been kind. 

They take him out of the room promptly at 3 pm every day. They take him out of the cell and shuffle him down the hall to piece his brother back together. He stands straight for the first time all day, stretching tall and rolling his head on his shoulders. Sometimes, they sit him down on a stool and shave his face; they sit him down and shave his head. He's stopped the bleeding in ten minutes and Michael is panting up at him, staring hard like he is trying to tell him something.

Max wishes he could do more than just put his brother back together.

They never let him near Isobel. She was the dangerous one, after all.

Before this, before the Division caught them, the woman in white had grabbed him by the arm and stared hard. She’d gone sharp and worried. “Your salvation will dance.”

He’d been young, staring at her while Isobel had eaten a second bowl of cereal shoulder to shoulder with the woman’s daughter. Michael had been playing with pool balls. 

They'd been picked up later that day by a couple, a woman with straight blonde hair and hawkish nose and her husband in horn rimmed glasses and salt and pepper hair.

"Where did you find them, Mimi? This is more than we're equipped to handle. Maybe-"

"You need to take them somewhere safe, Anne." The woman in white didn't look back at where Michael was staring at the back of the wood panelled blue wagon with distrust. She stared out at the horizon. She stared at nothing. "A war is coming. I've seen it."

Max always shied away from the memories that came next. He shied away from the few short years they had with the Evans on the run. He shied away from the way Phil would read to him. He shied away from how Anne would cut the crusts off Michael's PBJ sandwiches. 

"Your hair is already curly, handsome." She'd wink at Michael and Isobel would pick up the edges of the bread and munch on them in the hotel room. They learned to talk from the tv. They learned to read from informational pamphlets. They saw the country in Rest Areas and gas stations.

He doesn't like to think about the way they'd all piled out of the back of the Ford wagon to stare at the immeasurable expanse of the Grand Canyon. He remembers it in spectacular color- yawning and breathtaking in the ache of soft pastel colors and effervescent blue skies. There'd been an elk that followed them hopefully in the parking lot; the doe's large brown eyes pleading.

"I bet I could fly," Michael had told Phil. Phil had squeezed the boy's hand and nodded.

"You kids are special."

He shied away from that memory because it shone the brightest. In a world full of white- the color was almost violent.

He'd sat on a bench and watched the families scamper back and forth through the paved area around the gift shop and ranger station. The desert heat sat tight to the ground and he could feel the way the backs of his thighs would stick to the bench slats. He'd been quiet. He'd always been a little quiet.

His brother was vibrant and wild; his sister beautiful and golden. Max had seen Michael steal candy from the gas stations without his hands with a wink and a sly grin. Isobel would just blink wide innocent eyes at strangers and they would hand her money.

He shied away from this memory because it was his favorite.

The girl sat next to him with a small humph, dark glossy black hair lifted up off her neck as she fanned at her flushed face. She'd made a face at him, sympathetic and amused before shifting enough to toss her hair over the back of the bench and puddle in the heat next to him. 

The world seemed hotter-- electric-- and Max swallowed and looked around before looking back at her. He thinks that in his memory of one of the greatest natural phenomena in the world it's silly that she's all he remembers.

Sometimes, in the quiet and the dark he wonders what could have been. He tries not to wonder if she thinks of him too.

"Liz."

He never says it out loud, just shapes the name on his tongue against his teeth- the way it feels fizzy and electric. He would have been a writer. He would have to in order to find the right words to explain the shape of her in his mind.

It's 3pm and he hears the door unlock. He stands, scuffing his palm over his head and rolls his shoulders. The path is simple, rote. He waits outside the door, cuffed at wrists and ankles. He's docile. He's waiting. He can't leave his family.

No one else could put Michael back together.

The halls all look the same. There are no windows except the clear protective glass in the doors to the next section. Most times they’re drugged and dampened. Something happened years ago, something big and Max had learned how to stay alive. He wasn’t sure if he knew how to stay sane.

The medtest bay was five halls and six turns away. Isobel was there, tangled in tubes and wires, eyelids twitching in dreams. He got to see her whenever they brought him in to test. 

Sometimes, when he woke up, he was sure they'd spoken.

He can hear the cameras clicking over, almost feel them watching him. The door forward only opens when the one behind him is closed.

He lifts his head when he's outside the medtest bay, looking for Isobel first, always looking for his family first when a woman in the uniform white wiggles her hips and shimmies a few steps before pausing.

He knows before he _knows_.

The door opens and the music is there, soft like it's on headphones but its there. He watches, he watches the way her hands lift and fall, the way she flips her head from side to side. He watches and it's in color.

She spins, mouth open as she lip syncs the words and startles, staring at him where he stood in the doorway. He's taller than her now. He's grown. He's broad shouldered and rangy, a little underfed and he wishes he knew what he looked like outside of gaunt and shorn. 

She's beautiful. She's still beautiful with her glossy dark hair pulled into a tight careful bun that he idly wants to run a finger over. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous and he knows he should be angry. He should be enraged. He should want to rend and hurt but all he can do is stare. He's wide eyed and breathless, watching her.

"Max?"

" _Liz._ "

It still feels perfect and electric when he says it out loud.


End file.
